Just as he did for his mugshot yesterday, Rep. Tom DeLay continued to smile throughout his first day of court today.

In a statement to the media, DeLay said, "You may be surprised to hear this from me today but I find this is a very good day." We are pleased that DeLay appreciates spending time in court and sincerely hope that he continues to enjoy much more of the same.

Today's court appearance was little more than an opportunity for DeLay's legal team to spin the charges against him as partisan. What is most striking is the lack of voices in the media to balance DeLay's spin. Even so, it was a day long anticipated and every moment of the process may be worth savoring.

We have put together some video highlights from CNN, MSNBC and FOX News as they were broadcast live this morning. How do you rate the media's coverage of this event?

They are perfectly legal charges. NeoCons confuse the indictment process with the trial process. Every charge that goes to the jury trial level is a valid charge. Even when the defendant is found not guilty.

Charging a crime and proving it beyond a reasonable doubt are two different worlds entirely.

These are valid charges which the majority of the grand jury brought, not Mr. Earle.

The ignorance peddlers working for delay have advanced a notion that the judiciary is political, rather than legal in nature. In the attempted politicization of a natural criminal prosecution process, they use the Rovian tactic of character assassination.

But in their blind ignorance they forget that it is the judicial process they are slandering and dragging down. They are damaging American government.

Every judge in America belongs to some political party, and in every case there will be prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and juries composed of multiple political parties.

What DeLay and the other neoCon criminals want to do is take that great value from America. It is a great value to be able to do government above the partisan level. As a matter of fact, it must work above that level if the American government claims not to be a bananna republic but instead a mature democracy.

Not only are DeLay neoCons de-valuing the dollar, they are now de-valuing the judicial branch (1/3 of American government).

It is wrong to damage America in this way by attempting to drag down the judiciary into the gutter of partisan political criminals.

Remember the stupid Terri Schiavo legislation DeLay master minded, which the judiciary saw for what it was? So did the majority of Americans, and they still do.

We can get rid of DeLay and the rest of the criminal neoCon mutants and be so very much better off for it. And to their credit the sane folk in the republican party are beginning to do just that.

Meanwhile, the delay gang stepped up and told the judge that he could not judge impartially because he had contributed money to political parties that are not political parties delay approves of.

What about Meir? Is she only the judge of the party she contributes to and therefore cannot sit on cases involving parties other than those she gave money to?

Hey what about the majority of us ... the rest of the people she is supposed to represent?

What kind of mind would think like that? The answer seems to be "the neoCon criminal mind".

Kira
NO doubt that is a nasty thing....kinda looks like a ROVE microphone implant gone bad...you can almost hear the turd yelling...smile you guilty bastards...if they ( the Delays) keep appearing on TV, you know she will have to have corrective surgery...wonder if hes gonna smile like that when hes in the prison shower with a johnson stuck in his backside...

Delay had that smile painted on by the same plastic surgeon that did me

Shit-eating Grin

At the altar with an empty bowl,
I beseech my maker
for meaning that life’s struggles offer.
Sinking into the silent space of my center,
I settle within my questioning,
vulnerable, receptive, strong,
waiting for wisdom…

Relaxing in the arms of God,
my mind opens to possibility,
my heart to deeper love,
into and through my surrender
flows divine answer…

Inducing calm and trust
in cosmic order,
exalting me to a blissful smile.

#8
Kira,
I'm glad you liked my description, but I gotta confess I didn't originate that 'rock' analogy. I pinched it from a long-ago friend. Kind of. Gotta tell you the story now, haha!
I was in church with my girlfriend...I guess we were about 12. We were being typical, giggly girls, TRYING to be properly quiet, but there was a guy a few pews in front of us whose comb-over was so shiny & unmovable it looked as solid as a cliff.
She leaned over & whispered:
"Look at that guy's hair...it looks like you could bang it with a rock!"
We laughed like lunatics for the rest of the service & got in big trouble with our parents, who were NOT amused.
It's one of those memories that STILL makes me laugh.
Thanks, Marcia, wherever you are!

my guess is the corporate media is not gonna touch l'affaire DeLay du Jour with a ten foot pole, not unless they absolutely have to, in a wan sort of CYA as SOP, because they are afraid of getting "Rathergated" (or "swift-boated").

perhaps the pictures need no further explanation, as they speak for themselves, in a way; it seems to me that DeLay has simply gone batshit. he is a little more happy than a man in his situation might want to be perceived as being. unless he knows something we don't, it may be that he has finally and competely lost his mind, after all. is it ever a good idea to be that happy in court? particularly when you're the defendant?

Tom DeLay’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, claims that the judge presiding over DeLay’s criminal case in Texas, Bob Perkins, should be disqualified. A central part of his claim is that an organization that Perkins has donated to in the past, MoveOn, is selling t-shirts with Tom DeLay’s mug shot ...

... According to MoveOn’s Washington director Tom Mattzie, this claim is false. Mattzie told ThinkProgress this morning that MoveOn has “never sold any t-shirts with Tom DeLay’s mug shot” on their website or otherwise. You can go to their website and see that he’s right. ***more***

From the Associated Press: The judge, Bob Perkins, has been a contributor to Democratic causes. DeLay’s attorney pointed out Friday that those causes include MoveOn.org, which is now selling a T-shirt with DeLay’s picture on it.

I went to MoveOn's website to see their statement about the DeLay lawyer and found this petition, with no links or information about the budget that they are smearing. All they do is make a short statement meant to garner opposition than get as many people to write about it as possible. And they call these tax cuts a "reverse Robin Hood budget," further entrenching the myth that tax cuts are meant for ONLY the wealthy. I think they should be stopped from doing these kind of campaigns. I don't ever see Brad trying to use this blog to disinform or to change people's opinions by rhetoric instead of information - MoveOn is just as bad as you claim the MSM is (don't argue me on the MSM, I agree they suck.)

BREAKING NEWS!!! Your attitude fits in perfectly with the neoCON way. NO, my dear, it is NOT a lawyer's job to lie - yes, a lot of lawyers are unethical, but it is NOT in the job description. It is an abuse of power and it is only the unethical and dishonorable who choose that path.

The tax cuts are, most certainly, a reverse Robin Hood disaster for most people (other than the top 1%) in this country. The neoCONs harp on stopping the US from becoming a 'welfare state' while they have turned us into a 'corporate welfare state.' There's no way around it --- you listen to a warped rhetoric designed to fluff-up the bu$h gangsta regime and keep people ignorant of the fact that this country is going down the tubes fast. We may never be able to recover.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, in reference to the Fitzgerald/CIA leak investigation, is quoted as saying that she hoped "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

Kay Bailey Hutchison voted in favor of both counts of impeachment against Bill Clinton. And even more disturbingly, in the Congressional record dated February 17th, 1999 she states that she DOES NOT hold to the view of our Constitution – that there must be an actual indictable crime in order for an act of a public officer to be impeachable.

O K, so I email DeGuerin@ DDeguerin@aol.com to ask him where I can find these t-shirts he said were on MoveOn, and he answers back www.pcactionfund.org, so I guess that means you don't need to have your facts straight or conduct yourself in a professional manner ( guess that would be asking alot) when you accuse a judge of anything on national TV, this is pure horse shit, DeGuerin should be held in contempt or charged with perjury or anything else the judge can find to charge him with.
I don't know what he teachs as part of the extended faculty at U of T in Austin, or if he is allowed to teach, unless not staying on point or just pulling supposed facts out of your ass if part of the curriculum or is it applied courtroom circus science that he teaches . This would be like someone telling the court that a woman judge can't hear a case because the defendant is a man or the black judge can't hear a case because the defendant is white...what kind of bull shit is this.....

DeLay, accused of masterminding a political fundraising scheme that helped put more Republicans in the Texas Legislature and Congress, contends Perkins is too much of a Democrat to give him a fair trial (link here).

Notice the "too much of a Democrat" phrase. The notion conjures up a soft and puffy world view where you can't be too much of a republican or democrat or independent or green or whatever political party, or you can't be a judge.

The delay mentality is so unamerican and so sick I am wondering why folks everywhere are not calling bu$hit on it.

This is sick. It says americans are so morally and mentally weak they can't be fair because of their political party.

It also says to the tens of thousands of judges that they can only judge in cases where the litigants are of their own political party.

DREDD #34 "That is pathetically insane." Well hell I guess Delay will get off because of mental defect then, huh? That would explain the stupid grin on his face in his smug shot.......His next arguement will be that Duncan is dem also.....I just hope that at 81 years old his mind is sharp as a tack...........

#36 KIRA, So true, I like it .................we all need to be careful not to feed the wrong one, and to be careful what our decisions are based upon. as most people tend to make decisions based on vanity, jealousy, lust, greed,or fear.

- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates*
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION

- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 14
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3

No, it's not an excuse ... but my point is this: Some, not all, but some liberals from TV, radio and the Internet keep saying that the Bush administration is the most corrupt White House ever ... and convicting everyone before they are charged. The main point being that Bush is liar and corrupt, which is not even close to being true.

Greg is obviously clinton-retentive just like most of the reich-wingers who come here hoping to distract from what is current and relevant.

There is no contest when pitting the Clinton administration with the bu$h/neoCON administration as to which one is is/has been more harmful to our country and its Citizens. The current administration will eventually be exposed for its massive corruption. And people like you, Greg, do us no service by keeping your heads buried in the sand.